|
Page 1 of 2 By Becky Beane|Published Date: June 02, 2009
The Chairman of Prison Fellowship International Discovers God’s Treasures in the Most Destitute Places
 By the time he was 40, Michael Timmis presented the oft-enviable picture of success. He had wealth—amassed from his prowess as an attorney and from the companies he’d acquired with his partner. He had the community stature that comes with such wealth and business acumen. He had a handsome family. He had a seat in the pew of his Catholic church every Sunday.
But as in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the inner man veiled from the public eye was steadily disintegrating. “I was miserable, empty, self-righteous, and critical,” he admits. Family bonds had frayed. The rich beauty of the Mass was lost on a heart not yet surrendered to Jesus Christ.
“I believed that Jesus was Savior and Lord,” Timmis says. “But I did not have a personal relationship with Him.”
That came a little later—his “encounter” with Christ, as Timmis refers to it. He and his wife, Nancy, attended a dinner at a country club near their Grosse Pointe, Michigan, home—where the speakers talked of a faith that vitalized every part of their lives. That evening, Mike acknowledged Christ as his personal Savior and Lord and committed his life to knowing and serving Him.
Immediately “I experienced a deep sense of peace,” he remembers, as Jesus began to integrate the outer and inner men, filling his impoverished soul and giving new direction in the priority and use of his material riches.
Even before that personal encounter with Christ, Timmis had committed to helping the poor. He and Nancy had befriended and “adopted” an inner-city family. “But as often happens with workaholics, it becomes easier to send a check than to give of yourself,” he says. “After our profound encounter with Christ, we realized that supporting something with money was not enough. That was only one component of giving to the Lord.”
Actually, give is a word Timmis seldom uses anymore. “I am an allocator, not a giver, because everything is God’s,” he explains. “And God has given me three things to allocate: my time, my talent, and my resources. He wants me to use them all to help build up His kingdom.”
So today, at 64, Timmis is both financially and practically involved in programs that help revitalize both individual lives and communities—from urban neighborhoods of Detroit to rural pockets of the Third World. In everything he asks himself, “Is what I’m doing bringing me closer to Jesus? If, at the end of the day, my relationship with Jesus has not deepened, then whatever I’m doing, I’m just doing it for myself.”
|
